Both of you make good points:
@Dmjonic I would say the education is so important, of both farmers and consumers. As you said, the infrastructure in rural regions is challenging to say the least.
I ate wild berries whole summer here in Belgium. As some of the walking paths are very frequented, I couldn’t understand why others weren’t doing the same. Especially kids, they would stop by and look at me, wondering what am I doing maybe? Reminded me of an incredulous face a friend made when I told him he doesn’t know what a tomato or an egg really tastes like.
Well last year I took 2 of them, Brussels city kids, to a small village in Croatia. I think they ate 2kgs of tomatoes just for breakfast 
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People are disconnected from the whole process, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear children claiming berries grow in the supermarkets soon…so we do need to show them the value of proper nutrition.
Too bad it’s not done by those in charge of our health but, it’s not profitable enough.
About subsidies, the solution might be somewhere in between. I agree with @matthias , I don’t believe in gifts as a sustainable solution for anything BUT, I spent quite some time working in rural development/EU funds ecosystem. There are real benefits for small farmers when they can buy machines and build structures, or plant trees which will last decades and bring steady revenue. So I totally support this kind of grants. I am well aware they are often not efficient or even written badly when influenced by bigger entities. That, depends of us, though, so system in place isn’t that bad but we humans certainly like corrupting things.
So, for me long term solutions are definitely somewhere along @matthias thinking but there are very useful grants (if properly distributed) to speed things up.
Also, grants are pointless if the farmer cannot be competitive on the market due to conditions outside of his immediate influence.
I also believe farmers can achieve much higher efficiency and reduce the cost further by cooperating and using planned development. That’s what we are doing now in Croatia, in the village of my grandparents. There is too much distrust but, we have now 6 people willing to work together. Instead of all 6 buying one machine worth 20 000 euros, we will each buy a different one and use them for anyone who needs them. We will also create a brand where possible and a common platform for marketing our products/services. We simply need to create a very powerful example. It is pointless to talk in Balkans, there have been too many lies and empty promises, so just do it and do it well.
When do grants not work? Grants are pointless when there is no proper education of the population and monitoring/evaluation afterwards. In that case, they are a waste and in many cases do more damage than good.
They also don’t work when the overall system enforced by relevant laws/treaties are favorable to huge companies.
I believe food should be cheap. Why? Well because food is the most basic requirement for each human being. It is an essential part on our quest for freedom, as it is also a great tool for control. As Mathias said, a lot of people cannot afford quality food and they will go for the cheapest. It will later cost them much more but what are they to do?
Food is not expensive now because it must be. Food is expensive now because we created the system in which it MUST be expensive.
One of the big reasons is the abandonment of rural regions, migration to urban centers. It is increasing both the cost of living for everyone in cities and cost of production/delivery for smaller producers.
Another one is the taxes and laws put into place. Supposedly for protecting the consumer but in fact allowing big companies monopolies on life basically.
Nobody should be able to patent life. Nobody should be able to standardise life.
Another reason is linked to that as well. When people are fed the same story that they MUST BUY Z seed, for it they need X pesticide and Y fertiliser now. The seeds are of course sterile or will not yield almost anything if you dry them and replant the next year…and they all lead to the same company with 95% market share? What is that? It is a travesty of a system!
So what would be the solutions?
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Use the current crisis and upcoming economic difficulties + remote work possibilities to encourage migration back to the rural areas.
Policy encouragement, cheaper, greater self sufficiency, quality of life much higher (lower pollution) etc…there are many pros. The biggest con for city people would be lack of human potential when they look at some village etc. That can be changed very fast if done in an organised way. Bringing educated, creative people from cities to a rural area and combining them with the experience people there already have, would bring great results. -
Network! First network with other like minded people in cities (who are looking into moving), with idea of combining skills to build communities with great potential. Then network further, nationally and internationally, to create very big organisations which can represent us at the highest levels of policy making. There is always private power versus public power. We cannot compete in private power (financially), but they cannot compete in public power (votes).
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Participate to the maximum in local affairs. From my experience, there are a lot of ways to get authorities to build the much needed infrastructure. Some include simple persistency and activism, others include actually educating them (as they might not be aware of opportunities from various funds). Direct or participatory democracy can be implemented at that low level quite easily.